Vintage Crop serve to serve again. Over the last four years the Geelong group have become a burgeoning force in the Australian punk scene. Their burly, brusque yet supple songs have evolved from the garage rock of 2017's TV Organs album into the post-punk panic attack of 2019's Company Man EP. Now they've sculpted their sound further, the barrage now offset with robust songwriting, their full-pelt bounce tempered with flailing guitar lines and sardonic commentary. Bringing to mind Wire tackling tracks from early 7"s by The Yummy Fur, it's an inspired approach, both striking and effortlessly mirthful. Vintage Crop still dish-up plenty of commanding stomp, their lyrics remain as keen-eyed as ever, but now they're unafraid to mess with the tempo and drive their point home. Serve To Serve Again is Vintage Crop's third full-length album. It was recorded by Mikey Young after a year of playing solid shows, including tours in Europe and the UK alongside Louder Than Death and URSA and some of the band's biggest shows to date in Australia with Amyl & The Sniffers, R.M.F.C., and The Stroppies. "First In Line" races off the blocks with its sawtooth riff and splintered beat, all jagged edges and ragged vocals. Quickly follow a pair of totemic bruisers in the guise of "The Ladder" and "The North", both brimming with a nigh anthemic quality, confident in their faculty to rouse the rabble. "Jack's Casino" is a lurching romp about gambling, "Streetview" is similarly propellent, only choosing to meander and divert itself with cryptic trips around the neighborhood: "He only moved to that side of town because the postcode is worth it's weight in gold." There's no better poised nod to frustration than "Gridlock" -- "the hustle and bustle of inner-city traffic is driving me nuts because the radios on static." Guitar lines entwine and wriggle wildly free from the song's pouncing rhythm and potent vocal, making for the most vigorous of rackets. "Just My Luck" prowls with a shared thrumming verve, whilst "Everyday Heroes" closes out the album with measured flair. Skewed and fervent, rangy at times yet always assured in its intent Serve To Serve Again is long-legged leap for Vintage Crop into the delirious now. These songs strive to make sense of futility, they criticize the chain of command, question privilege and most importantly make you want more from life. Now all you have to do is turn up the volume! 180 gram, opaque white vinyl; edition of 500.

Primo are a quartet from Melbourne writing up-tempo, terse, chorus-and-verse with two guitars, bass, drums, and a shared group vocal sensibility to adorn their enquiries into deconstructed punk. Their songs chime and charm, sounding at times bountiful, at others brittle, always buoyant with attention to detail. Primo songs are inquisitive, chasing down questions for answers hurrying away, amidst minimalist shuffle beats and ringing-out chords. The group's debut album Amici (2018) was a triumph of the underplayed, its small details pulling focus, allowing the album to treat you to unexpected truths in plain sight. Primo's newest member since Amici was recorded is Amy Hill, who also plays in Terry and Constant Mongrel, on bass. Outside of Primo, Xanthe and Violetta both have lent their guitar skills to Terry and The Shifters respectively, whilst Suzanne works in film. 2020 sees Primo return with their second album of prudent delights entitled Sogni, from the Italian for "dreams". Using the same musical lexicon and internal logic developed through their debut, Sogni reflects on themes of decision-making, change, time, heartbreak, the practicalities of work and daily life. The songs came together as a way of making sense of the times -- offering a way through. Tracks were demo-ed quickly by early 2019, then developed collectively through the year in the rehearsal room, played live and finally recorded onto eight-track in late 2019 by Al Montfort in a number of home studios across Melbourne. Vocal duties were largely shared throughout the record, which has the same post punk sensibility and minimal approach as in previous recordings, but here imbued now with electronic flourishes and expanded instrumentation that sees Primo's sound growing bolder. Sogni will be released through Upset the Rhythm. Primo's sound has been likened to Young Marble Giants and Flying Nun bands.

LP version. Orange vinyl. Primo are a quartet from Melbourne writing up-tempo, terse, chorus-and-verse with two guitars, bass, drums, and a shared group vocal sensibility to adorn their enquiries into deconstructed punk. Their songs chime and charm, sounding at times bountiful, at others brittle, always buoyant with attention to detail. Primo songs are inquisitive, chasing down questions for answers hurrying away, amidst minimalist shuffle beats and ringing-out chords. The group's debut album Amici (2018) was a triumph of the underplayed, its small details pulling focus, allowing the album to treat you to unexpected truths in plain sight. Primo's newest member since Amici was recorded is Amy Hill, who also plays in Terry and Constant Mongrel, on bass. Outside of Primo, Xanthe and Violetta both have lent their guitar skills to Terry and The Shifters respectively, whilst Suzanne works in film. 2020 sees Primo return with their second album of prudent delights entitled Sogni, from the Italian for "dreams". Using the same musical lexicon and internal logic developed through their debut, Sogni reflects on themes of decision-making, change, time, heartbreak, the practicalities of work and daily life. The songs came together as a way of making sense of the times -- offering a way through. Tracks were demo-ed quickly by early 2019, then developed collectively through the year in the rehearsal room, played live and finally recorded onto eight-track in late 2019 by Al Montfort in a number of home studios across Melbourne. Vocal duties were largely shared throughout the record, which has the same post punk sensibility and minimal approach as in previous recordings, but here imbued now with electronic flourishes and expanded instrumentation that sees Primo's sound growing bolder. Sogni will be released through Upset the Rhythm. Primo's sound has been likened to Young Marble Giants and Flying Nun bands.

Less of Everything. The title of Es's first full-length LP could be interpreted as a manifesto pledge, an outright demand or a purely literal sonic descriptor of the London quartet's glacial form of punk rock music. This tension between intent and interpretation has been a fundamental element of the group's output from their formation. Es is Maria Cecilia Tedemalm (vocals), Katy Cotterell (bass), Tamsin M. Leach (drums), and Flora Watters (keyboards). Their 2016 debut EP, Object Relations, released on influential London punk label La Vida Es Un Mus, was described as 'mutant synth-punk for our dystopian present' (Jess Skolnik, Bandcamp, Pitchfork). The band has since become a vital presence in London's underground DIY music scene, as well as having toured the UK with the Thurston Moore Group in 2017. After a period with members split between Glasgow and London, Es recorded Less of Everything with Lindsay Corstorphine (Sauna Youth, Primitive Parts) in Tottenham in 2019. As in Object Relations, the dynamic between Cotterell's bass and Watters's keyboard is at the heart of Less of Everything's sound: intertwining sub-zero melodies, gothic anarcho-punk influences (think Kukl, Malaria, X-Mal Deutschland) and some kind of entirely unlocatable aquatic component. When combined with Murray Leach's precise drumming, the outcome is original and immediately recognizable. Es are a group who know how to leave space, how to strive for minimalism without sacrificing aggression or dynamism. This dynamic provides the perfect backdrop for Tedemalm's relentless, pointed vocal style. While comparable 'cold' sounding groups might affect an impersonal, safer mode of lyrical or vocal detachment, Tedemalm's strategy is to 'push the lyrics as far as I can thematically until they become absurd -- overly dramatic ... while still being sincere in the feeling they're trying to invoke. I try to apply as much emotion as I can.' The result is something intense but nuanced, confrontational but complex." --Owen Williams, 2020 180 gram, transparent vinyl; edition of 500.

Incorporating a diverse range of influences, from samba to no wave, Handle, a three-piece from Manchester (now based between Manchester/London/Brussels) made up of Giulio Erasmus and Nirvana Heire, former members of D.U.D.S (the first British band to sign to Castle Face) and Leo Hermitt, a genderqueer multidisciplinary artist renowned for their challenging, thought-provoking work in the city's arts and literary scenes. The group mesh politics with a trans experience of time and a vibrant, avant-garde freedom of approach. Handle make a uniquely minimal sound, buoyed by poetic, urgent vocals. Each instrument (bass, drums, keyboard and voice) is permitted its own space, yet somehow the result is a brilliantly unified yet understated sonic experience that demands then commands your attention. Powered by looping, hypnotic synth lines, quaking flexes of bass, clattering tribal percussion and expeditious, often agitated vocals that cordially sprint, Handle's songs -- all of which clock in around the two-minute mark -- owe as much to performance poetry as they do to the vibrancy of post-punk and new wave. In these times of anxiety and confusion, Handle provide a much-needed dose of musical catharsis, albeit disorientating at times, pre-empting sense from the shards of sound they gather about themselves. "Life's Work" begins with isolated swells of pitch before driving full throttle into an exuberant rhythmic workout. "Sunday Morning" shares this elasticated feel for melody and communication, twisting about itself in rubbery fashion. "Coagulate" is more disembodied from the pulse, but similarly retains a boldness of vision. "Step By Step" showcases what Handle excel at, it's a clangorous leviathan of beat-forward dance punk, peppered with Leo's fluid vocal inertia. It's dizzying yet divinely exuberant. "Punctured Time" evokes the same cascading flow "Punctured time, bicycle wheel, what if I told you that your lips were like venus, lips were like what? Lips were like venus and that my tongue was a trampoline?" sings Leo amid undulating bass, toppling drums and jabs of keyboard ambience. Handle make music occupied by dark shapes that move beneath a roiling surface: jolting, shattering, cracking, smoothed, bounded, punctuated. Handle's debut album In Threes is a collection of frenetic sounds for frenzied forms. In Threes was recorded and mixed by Robin Williams and follows on from the band's previous EP Demonstrations (2018), released through their own imprint Absolute Fiction.

LP version, edition of 500 on 180g vinyl. Incorporating a diverse range of influences, from samba to no wave, Handle, a three-piece from Manchester (now based between Manchester/London/Brussels) made up of Giulio Erasmus and Nirvana Heire, former members of D.U.D.S (the first British band to sign to Castle Face) and Leo Hermitt, a genderqueer multidisciplinary artist renowned for their challenging, thought-provoking work in the city's arts and literary scenes. The group mesh politics with a trans experience of time and a vibrant, avant-garde freedom of approach. Handle make a uniquely minimal sound, buoyed by poetic, urgent vocals. Each instrument (bass, drums, keyboard and voice) is permitted its own space, yet somehow the result is a brilliantly unified yet understated sonic experience that demands then commands your attention. Powered by looping, hypnotic synth lines, quaking flexes of bass, clattering tribal percussion and expeditious, often agitated vocals that cordially sprint, Handle's songs -- all of which clock in around the two-minute mark -- owe as much to performance poetry as they do to the vibrancy of post-punk and new wave. In these times of anxiety and confusion, Handle provide a much-needed dose of musical catharsis, albeit disorientating at times, pre-empting sense from the shards of sound they gather about themselves. "Life's Work" begins with isolated swells of pitch before driving full throttle into an exuberant rhythmic workout. "Sunday Morning" shares this elasticated feel for melody and communication, twisting about itself in rubbery fashion. "Coagulate" is more disembodied from the pulse, but similarly retains a boldness of vision. "Step By Step" showcases what Handle excel at, it's a clangorous leviathan of beat-forward dance punk, peppered with Leo's fluid vocal inertia. It's dizzying yet divinely exuberant. "Punctured Time" evokes the same cascading flow "Punctured time, bicycle wheel, what if I told you that your lips were like venus, lips were like what? Lips were like venus and that my tongue was a trampoline?" sings Leo amid undulating bass, toppling drums and jabs of keyboard ambience. Handle make music occupied by dark shapes that move beneath a roiling surface: jolting, shattering, cracking, smoothed, bounded, punctuated. Handle's debut album In Threes is a collection of frenetic sounds for frenzied forms. In Threes was recorded and mixed by Robin Williams and follows on from the band's previous EP Demonstrations (2018), released through their own imprint Absolute Fiction.

180 gram, clear vinyl; edition of 300. Trash Kit are Rachel Aggs (guitar, vocals), Rachel Horwood (drums, vocals), and Gill Partington (bass). Three deeply creative individuals who play in a multitude of other groups including Bas Jan, Sacred Paws, Shopping, and Bamboo. Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like Sleater-Kinney, The Ex, and The Raincoats, their sound is still very much their own take on facing forwards and relies as much on the naturalism of an internalized folk music as on their sincerity of vision. For Horizon, carefully crafted through years of playing out live, the band have chased down the distance between what they wanted the record to sound like and its realization. They've augmented these songs with choral arrangements, piano, saxophone, harp, viola, and cello. Horizon finds itself full of themes, especially the notion of looking to the future. "Coasting", which opens the album, is concerned with "the end of the world and also the afterlife" and was written after Aggs read The Parable of the Sower (1993) by the Afro futurist sci-fi writer Octavia Butler, a novel set in an apocalyptic California and featuring a protagonist in search of change and renewal. "Sunset" draws on similar themes of ending and salvation, and proves equally ruminative. "Dislocate" on the other hand is an upbeat sprint of spinning guitar and piano riffs showcasing both Rachels's overlapping vocal magnetism. "Horizon" is a sleeping giant of a title track, forever reaching out and intensifying throughout its lively five-minute lesson in reinforcement. "Every Second" was written in the aftershock of Trash Kit's tour with The Ex on their big convoy anniversary tour. "See Through" sounds pointed and surly, urging you to "transcend, break down" outdated categories and patterns of thought that only restrict. Partington's bassline plummets heavily to hammer this home, making it one of the most affecting songs from the album. Meanwhile "Get Out of Bed" deals with "being an overachiever and the struggle to overcome self-doubt, get motivated, never feeling like you've done enough" Aggs admits. A strong undercurrent throughout Horizon concerns itself with the freeing up of power to make your own definitions, in this case how you can decide what truly makes you feel like you've achieved something.

Kaputt are a recently hatched post punk act from Glasgow, Scotland. Numbering six, Kaputt feature Simone Wilson and Cal Donnelly on guitars and vocals, Chrissy Barnacle also sings and plays saxophone. Tobias Carmichael is responsible for bass, whilst Rikki Will and Emma Smith cover drums and percussion respectively. Racing away from the playful torn edge of no-wave song, Kaputt blurt out tracks with twitchy charisma, their catchy riffs circle with relish, allowing timely sax stonks and stop-start rhythms to drive things on. Vocals leap, guitars bluster and always the saxophone snakes, hypnotically drawn through the erratic beat. The songs on Carnage Hall, Kaputt's debut album released by Upset The Rhythm, were all written in Glasgow between 2016-2018. Following on from the independence referendum and the subsequent Brexit vote these songs couldn't help but be influenced by the maelstrom of political hypocrisy and confusion in the air. Other themes prevalent on this energetic corkscrew of an album include the offbeat happenchance of life in 2019, notions of surveillance, identity (personal as well as the biscuit-tin styled persona of the Scottish Highlands), industrialization, and family. Title track "Carnage Hall" is about an alternative dimension in which Judy Garland's famous Carnegie Hall show, (one of the group's favorite albums), was a total bust rather than the roaring success it proved to be. "Rats" is a crumpled twist of song -- explosive, ruminative, and content to bemuse with a loose political allegory drawn out from a dank pet shop. "Accordion" lilts with more breezy tendency. Kaputt excel at fidgety, speedy outpourings of ideas, their songs zap by, multifaceted and bejeweled with detail and color. "Parsonage Square" is a great example of this, it's a song about public access, panopticons, and paranoia hurtled into a motley rip of melody. Meanwhile, "Suspectette" concerns itself with Mary Weiss of The Shangri-Las' FBI file. "Think About Your Face" investigates those certain grimaces made in passionate embrace. "Highlight" is an grade-A anthem doubling up as an eulogy for shipbuilding, "Drinking Problems Continue" parts 1 and 2 are about Ullapool and generational holidays spent watching "sun set on the ferry". Carnage Hall is an empathic album dealing with memory and place, but most importantly with people. Recorded and mixed by Luigi Pasquini in Anchor Lane Studios in Glasgow in spring 2019, before being mastered this summer by John Hannon at No Studios. 180 gram vinyl; edition of 400.

Robert Sotelo is a cosmic pop melodist; a heartfelt multi-instrumentalist whose direct songs are curiously affecting. His debut album Cusp from 2017 (UTR 098LP) was packed with miniature psych overtures and earnest musings, he then followed this up in 2018 with an album called Botanical, more keyboard-minded and playful with its near-absurdist palette of sound and reflective mood. Upset The Rhythm release Sotelo's third album Infinite Sprawling, his first record since relocating from London to Glasgow and partly inspired by his new city's inclusive and collaborative musical world. Sotelo has always excelled at matching up the prosaic with the profound and on Infinite Sprawling he does this with aplomb. A collection of casual revelations, lifted out of the mundane, are explored throughout the album's ten sprightly tracks. "Something Besides" opens the record in blithe reverie, nodding over a country-twang guitar. "Mister" follows in lively attitude, splintering with spidery bursts of fuzz. Through a lyrical list of items in the breezy tumble of a song called "Battery" where Sotelo muses on the anxieties inherent in forging a new social life when you move city. A similar theme carried by "The Set Up" which deals with discovering his new neighbors' tropes, the track strolls into the sun with an echoed refrain. "Roof" and "In The Style Of" also boast this analytic quality, making sense of the world through its small things first, both unabashedly melodic with blushes of tremolo blushes and inventive arrangements. The title track refers to Sotelo's final trip to Buenos Aires as a regular excursion to visit his mother, it's a farewell to the city and makes for an interesting counterpoint to the other songs' new starts. "Piece Of Cake" meanwhile is a more brooding effort, essentially a contemplation on lacking culinary skill. Twisty wah guitar lines tag along with Sotelo's vocal, each tugging at the sleeve of the other, while tambourines and keyboard pulses resound over the clicky drum accents. This keenly robust album of new beginnings and strategies for living is quietly drawn to a close with "Message Of Beauty", a relaxed ballad of drowsy farewells, swoons of violin and swirled clouds of organ drone. Infinite Sprawling is an album born out of new friendships, in a new country and for all its feet-finding sounds confident and emphatically considered. Recorded with Ruari MacLean (of Vital Idles, Golden Grrrls) and Edwin Stevens (Irma Vep, Yerba Mansa) at their home studio Namaste Sound. 180 gram dark-green vinyl; reverse-board sleeve with lyric insert; edition of 300.

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Edition of 300. Lunch Lady are a sparky group from Los Angeles redolent of the desert heat, pining hearts and that chorus-soaked cloak of sound held dear by followers of British early '80s post-punk. Numbering four, Lunch Lady consist of Rachel Birke (vocals), Juan Velasquez (guitar), Victor Herrera (bass), and Robert Wolfe (drums). The band began in 2017 when Velasquez asked Birke if she'd like to start a new music project with him, their respective other groups Abe Vigoda and Heller Keller having co-existed in LA's DIY orbit. Lunch Lady's dreamy punk forays into country ballad territory certainly swoop into sentiment, but it's the melancholy of artifice that defines their outlook. Lunch Lady recruited friends Herrera and Wolfe into the rhythm section, swiftly recorded a demo and started playing live. The band's music began to grow into sun-warped vignettes, often miniaturist character-studies in outlook. These songs are studded with unquiet recollection, all delivered with a curious objectivity that pulls the listener into the circle. Birke's vocal is unhurried and assured, pressing her characters' motives and words into the sprightly guitar trails and jogged rhythms that characterize the sound of the band. During the summer of 2018, Lunch Lady had assembled the tracks for their debut album, which they took into the studio towards the year's close. Lunch Lady's debut album, Angel was recorded at Gauchos Electronics, a key studio in the history of Los Angeles punk and the place where many of their peers had laid down albums previously, including Gun Outfit, Feels, Ty Segall, and No Age. Angel is an album of resounding yearning, of cold fire and hot, sticky blood. It's an album of troubled tales, buried hearts and wandering homeward. Throughout, Birke's narrative-heavy lyrics keep things themed and theatrical. This is most strongly felt on cinematic swirls of song like "Preacher Man" and clicky, strummer "Sweet One". The stunning track "Dolores" creeps and ranges around under a dark cloud of disclosure. "Window" whirls by with all the flourish of a card trick. Drums tumble whilst the guitar line twists through the taut stretch and sprint of the bass turns. Thematically, Lunch Lady's debut cascades with crumpled wishes and hotly recalled visions. The album swims with a type of anxious nostalgia. Birke's cover art of a flaming Cadillac falling through the sky is a case in point. Produced by Pascal Stevenson. Engineered and mixed by Scott Cornish. Mastered by Mikey Young.

Lunch Lady are a sparky group from Los Angeles redolent of the desert heat, pining hearts and that chorus-soaked cloak of sound held dear by followers of British early '80s post-punk. Numbering four, Lunch Lady consist of Rachel Birke (vocals), Juan Velasquez (guitar), Victor Herrera (bass), and Robert Wolfe (drums). The band began in 2017 when Velasquez asked Birke if she'd like to start a new music project with him, their respective other groups Abe Vigoda and Heller Keller having co-existed in LA's DIY orbit. Lunch Lady's dreamy punk forays into country ballad territory certainly swoop into sentiment, but it's the melancholy of artifice that defines their outlook. Lunch Lady recruited friends Herrera and Wolfe into the rhythm section, swiftly recorded a demo and started playing live. The band's music began to grow into sun-warped vignettes, often miniaturist character-studies in outlook. These songs are studded with unquiet recollection, all delivered with a curious objectivity that pulls the listener into the circle. Birke's vocal is unhurried and assured, pressing her characters' motives and words into the sprightly guitar trails and jogged rhythms that characterize the sound of the band. During the summer of 2018, Lunch Lady had assembled the tracks for their debut album, which they took into the studio towards the year's close. Lunch Lady's debut album, Angel was recorded at Gauchos Electronics, a key studio in the history of Los Angeles punk and the place where many of their peers had laid down albums previously, including Gun Outfit, Feels, Ty Segall, and No Age. Angel is an album of resounding yearning, of cold fire and hot, sticky blood. It's an album of troubled tales, buried hearts and wandering homeward. Throughout, Birke's narrative-heavy lyrics keep things themed and theatrical. This is most strongly felt on cinematic swirls of song like "Preacher Man" and clicky, strummer "Sweet One". The stunning track "Dolores" creeps and ranges around under a dark cloud of disclosure. "Window" whirls by with all the flourish of a card trick. Drums tumble whilst the guitar line twists through the taut stretch and sprint of the bass turns. Thematically, Lunch Lady's debut cascades with crumpled wishes and hotly recalled visions. The album swims with a type of anxious nostalgia. Birke's cover art of a flaming Cadillac falling through the sky is a case in point. Produced by Pascal Stevenson. Engineered and mixed by Scott Cornish. Mastered by Mikey Young. CD version comes in an edition of 500.

LP version. 180 gram, red vinyl; Edition of 300. Lunch Lady are a sparky group from Los Angeles redolent of the desert heat, pining hearts and that chorus-soaked cloak of sound held dear by followers of British early '80s post-punk. Numbering four, Lunch Lady consist of Rachel Birke (vocals), Juan Velasquez (guitar), Victor Herrera (bass), and Robert Wolfe (drums). The band began in 2017 when Velasquez asked Birke if she'd like to start a new music project with him, their respective other groups Abe Vigoda and Heller Keller having co-existed in LA's DIY orbit. Lunch Lady's dreamy punk forays into country ballad territory certainly swoop into sentiment, but it's the melancholy of artifice that defines their outlook. Lunch Lady recruited friends Herrera and Wolfe into the rhythm section, swiftly recorded a demo and started playing live. The band's music began to grow into sun-warped vignettes, often miniaturist character-studies in outlook. These songs are studded with unquiet recollection, all delivered with a curious objectivity that pulls the listener into the circle. Birke's vocal is unhurried and assured, pressing her characters' motives and words into the sprightly guitar trails and jogged rhythms that characterize the sound of the band. During the summer of 2018, Lunch Lady had assembled the tracks for their debut album, which they took into the studio towards the year's close. Lunch Lady's debut album, Angel was recorded at Gauchos Electronics, a key studio in the history of Los Angeles punk and the place where many of their peers had laid down albums previously, including Gun Outfit, Feels, Ty Segall, and No Age. Angel is an album of resounding yearning, of cold fire and hot, sticky blood. It's an album of troubled tales, buried hearts and wandering homeward. Throughout, Birke's narrative-heavy lyrics keep things themed and theatrical. This is most strongly felt on cinematic swirls of song like "Preacher Man" and clicky, strummer "Sweet One". The stunning track "Dolores" creeps and ranges around under a dark cloud of disclosure. "Window" whirls by with all the flourish of a card trick. Drums tumble whilst the guitar line twists through the taut stretch and sprint of the bass turns. Thematically, Lunch Lady's debut cascades with crumpled wishes and hotly recalled visions. The album swims with a type of anxious nostalgia. Birke's cover art of a flaming Cadillac falling through the sky is a case in point. Produced by Pascal Stevenson. Engineered and mixed by Scott Cornish. Mastered by Mikey Young.

Melbourne post-punk wags Terry return this summer with their new EP Who's Terry?. "Spud" is a class A toe-tapper that sees the band don fatigues and set their sights on the enemy. "Bizzo And Tophat" follows with a stride across the underbelly, a thick slice of bop-heavy observation that gives way to one of Terry's most elegiac refrains. "Eggs" then picks up the pace, a sure-footed romp that skips alongside prods of saxophone to join the parade. "Drawn For Days" pulls the EP to a close, a sedate, melodic ponderance of strummy guitar, jangling bells, and Amy and Xanthe's soft-sung vocals.

LP version. Glossy, printed gatefold sleeve; offset (matte) paper inner sleeve; includes booklet; Edition of 500. Upset The Rhythm present a reissue of Normil Hawaiians' What's Going On?, originally released in 1984. To Normil Hawaiians, getting out of lockstep with Thatcherism seemed imperative. Adding to an overriding sense of anxiety, close friend and band associate Martin Pawson took his life in July 1983. Following More Wealth Than Money, released on Illuminated Records in 1982, there was an impetus to make good on hard won achievements. Rehearsal and writing sessions resumed in the early months of 1983 at Intergalactic Arts Studios. IGA was a ramshackle, semi-residential rehearsal space. Illuminated Records had been sending artists to Foel Studios in Powys, Wales for years, and it had become a kind of refuge for the Hawaiians. Studio owner/manager Dave Anderson (Hawkwind/Amon Düül II) was welcoming, unruffled, and accommodating when around a dozen band members, friends, and family emerged from the "mini-peace convoy" of vehicles into the hazy, pastoral care of the warm, Welsh countryside. Whereas More Wealth Than Money had evolved in the recording studio, What's Going On began to develop as a more pre-meditated, albeit piecemeal work. "Quiet Village" and the unreleased "Outpost" had already been finished at Foel in February 1983. Recording Engineer Brian Snelling recalls how the Hawaiians approach to making the album was unconventional and spontaneous, reveling in chance and openness. Rehearsal tapes from IGA were played along to, and improvisations allowed to develop, with further layers of sound accreting (as can be heard on "Big Lies"). "Free Tibet" was created by the band playing together exploratively with Snelling waiting to hit "Record" until he heard that something interesting was coalescing. He recalls the sessions being initially unorthodox, but eventually settling into a friendly, productive, and very familial affair. Mixed tapes were then taken by Dave Andersen and Guy Smith to Charly Records' editing studio in London. Here they spliced the recordings into an irregular yet coherent, flowing work. Final masters were then EQ'd and cut by Graeme Durham at the newly opened Exchange Mastering Studios in Camden. And then nothing happened. Unbeknownst to the band, Illuminated Records were getting into deep financial problems. The label gave the band 250 copies, but the record shops wouldn't touch them -- the company had been blacklisted. This intricate, challenging and engaging work had been failed by poor circumstance.

Experts In Skin is the little sister follow-up to 2018's Living In Excellence (MUS 180LP). The A side holds the familiar post-post punk angst the band is known for, only building ever higher with a triple saxophone flurry and singer Tom Ridgewell mutters about mainstream consumerism. On the flip side the band turns to its pop sensibilities producing the tough but sweet sounding "Schnuki". Bassist Amy Hill's bouncing vocals contrast to the anarcho-punk growls below. Constant Mongrel have previous releases available on RIP Society, La Vida Es Un Mus, and Siltbreeze. 180 gram, transparent vinyl; Edition of 400.

Trash Kit are Rachel Aggs (guitar, vocals), Rachel Horwood (drums, vocals), and Gill Partington (bass). Three deeply creative individuals who play in a multitude of other groups including Bas Jan, Sacred Paws, Shopping, and Bamboo. Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like Sleater-Kinney, The Ex, and The Raincoats, their sound is still very much their own take on facing forwards and relies as much on the naturalism of an internalized folk music as on their sincerity of vision. For Horizon, carefully crafted through years of playing out live, the band have chased down the distance between what they wanted the record to sound like and its realization. They've augmented these songs with choral arrangements, piano, saxophone, harp, viola, and cello. Horizon finds itself full of themes, especially the notion of looking to the future. "Coasting", which opens the album, is concerned with "the end of the world and also the afterlife" and was written after Aggs read The Parable of the Sower (1993) by the Afro futurist sci-fi writer Octavia Butler, a novel set in an apocalyptic California and featuring a protagonist in search of change and renewal. "Sunset" draws on similar themes of ending and salvation, and proves equally ruminative. "Dislocate" on the other hand is an upbeat sprint of spinning guitar and piano riffs showcasing both Rachels's overlapping vocal magnetism. "Horizon" is a sleeping giant of a title track, forever reaching out and intensifying throughout its lively five-minute lesson in reinforcement. "Every Second" was written in the aftershock of Trash Kit's tour with The Ex on their big convoy anniversary tour. "See Through" sounds pointed and surly, urging you to "transcend, break down" outdated categories and patterns of thought that only restrict. Partington's bassline plummets heavily to hammer this home, making it one of the most affecting songs from the album. Meanwhile "Get Out of Bed" deals with "being an overachiever and the struggle to overcome self-doubt, get motivated, never feeling like you've done enough" Aggs admits. A strong undercurrent throughout Horizon concerns itself with the freeing up of power to make your own definitions, in this case how you can decide what truly makes you feel like you've achieved something.

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Edition of 400. Trash Kit are Rachel Aggs (guitar, vocals), Rachel Horwood (drums, vocals), and Gill Partington (bass). Three deeply creative individuals who play in a multitude of other groups including Bas Jan, Sacred Paws, Shopping, and Bamboo. Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like Sleater-Kinney, The Ex, and The Raincoats, their sound is still very much their own take on facing forwards and relies as much on the naturalism of an internalized folk music as on their sincerity of vision. For Horizon, carefully crafted through years of playing out live, the band have chased down the distance between what they wanted the record to sound like and its realization. They've augmented these songs with choral arrangements, piano, saxophone, harp, viola, and cello. Horizon finds itself full of themes, especially the notion of looking to the future. "Coasting", which opens the album, is concerned with "the end of the world and also the afterlife" and was written after Aggs read The Parable of the Sower (1993) by the Afro futurist sci-fi writer Octavia Butler, a novel set in an apocalyptic California and featuring a protagonist in search of change and renewal. "Sunset" draws on similar themes of ending and salvation, and proves equally ruminative. "Dislocate" on the other hand is an upbeat sprint of spinning guitar and piano riffs showcasing both Rachels's overlapping vocal magnetism. "Horizon" is a sleeping giant of a title track, forever reaching out and intensifying throughout its lively five-minute lesson in reinforcement. "Every Second" was written in the aftershock of Trash Kit's tour with The Ex on their big convoy anniversary tour. "See Through" sounds pointed and surly, urging you to "transcend, break down" outdated categories and patterns of thought that only restrict. Partington's bassline plummets heavily to hammer this home, making it one of the most affecting songs from the album. Meanwhile "Get Out of Bed" deals with "being an overachiever and the struggle to overcome self-doubt, get motivated, never feeling like you've done enough" Aggs admits. A strong undercurrent throughout Horizon concerns itself with the freeing up of power to make your own definitions, in this case how you can decide what truly makes you feel like you've achieved something.

LP version. 180 gram yellow vinyl; Edition of 300. Trash Kit are Rachel Aggs (guitar, vocals), Rachel Horwood (drums, vocals), and Gill Partington (bass). Three deeply creative individuals who play in a multitude of other groups including Bas Jan, Sacred Paws, Shopping, and Bamboo. Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like Sleater-Kinney, The Ex, and The Raincoats, their sound is still very much their own take on facing forwards and relies as much on the naturalism of an internalized folk music as on their sincerity of vision. For Horizon, carefully crafted through years of playing out live, the band have chased down the distance between what they wanted the record to sound like and its realization. They've augmented these songs with choral arrangements, piano, saxophone, harp, viola, and cello. Horizon finds itself full of themes, especially the notion of looking to the future. "Coasting", which opens the album, is concerned with "the end of the world and also the afterlife" and was written after Aggs read The Parable of the Sower (1993) by the Afro futurist sci-fi writer Octavia Butler, a novel set in an apocalyptic California and featuring a protagonist in search of change and renewal. "Sunset" draws on similar themes of ending and salvation, and proves equally ruminative. "Dislocate" on the other hand is an upbeat sprint of spinning guitar and piano riffs showcasing both Rachels's overlapping vocal magnetism. "Horizon" is a sleeping giant of a title track, forever reaching out and intensifying throughout its lively five-minute lesson in reinforcement. "Every Second" was written in the aftershock of Trash Kit's tour with The Ex on their big convoy anniversary tour. "See Through" sounds pointed and surly, urging you to "transcend, break down" outdated categories and patterns of thought that only restrict. Partington's bassline plummets heavily to hammer this home, making it one of the most affecting songs from the album. Meanwhile "Get Out of Bed" deals with "being an overachiever and the struggle to overcome self-doubt, get motivated, never feeling like you've done enough" Aggs admits. A strong undercurrent throughout Horizon concerns itself with the freeing up of power to make your own definitions, in this case how you can decide what truly makes you feel like you've achieved something.

Upset The Rhythm present a reissue of Normil Hawaiians' What's Going On?, originally released in 1984. To Normil Hawaiians, getting out of lockstep with Thatcherism seemed imperative. Adding to an overriding sense of anxiety, close friend and band associate Martin Pawson took his life in July 1983. Following More Wealth Than Money, released on Illuminated Records in 1982, there was an impetus to make good on hard won achievements. Rehearsal and writing sessions resumed in the early months of 1983 at Intergalactic Arts Studios. IGA was a ramshackle, semi-residential rehearsal space. Illuminated Records had been sending artists to Foel Studios in Powys, Wales for years, and it had become a kind of refuge for the Hawaiians. Studio owner/manager Dave Anderson (Hawkwind/Amon Düül II) was welcoming, unruffled, and accommodating when around a dozen band members, friends, and family emerged from the "mini-peace convoy" of vehicles into the hazy, pastoral care of the warm, Welsh countryside. Whereas More Wealth Than Money had evolved in the recording studio, What's Going On began to develop as a more pre-meditated, albeit piecemeal work. "Quiet Village" and the unreleased "Outpost" had already been finished at Foel in February 1983. Recording Engineer Brian Snelling recalls how the Hawaiians approach to making the album was unconventional and spontaneous, reveling in chance and openness. Rehearsal tapes from IGA were played along to, and improvisations allowed to develop, with further layers of sound accreting (as can be heard on "Big Lies"). "Free Tibet" was created by the band playing together exploratively with Snelling waiting to hit "Record" until he heard that something interesting was coalescing. He recalls the sessions being initially unorthodox, but eventually settling into a friendly, productive, and very familial affair. Mixed tapes were then taken by Dave Andersen and Guy Smith to Charly Records' editing studio in London. Here they spliced the recordings into an irregular yet coherent, flowing work. Final masters were then EQ'd and cut by Graeme Durham at the newly opened Exchange Mastering Studios in Camden. And then nothing happened. Unbeknownst to the band, Illuminated Records were getting into deep financial problems. The label gave the band 250 copies, but the record shops wouldn't touch them -- the company had been blacklisted. This intricate, challenging and engaging work had been failed by poor circumstance. CD version includes seven bonus tracks; comes in gatefold wallet with booklet; edition of 500.

Bamboo, Nick Carlisle and Rachel Horwood, present their third studio album, Daughters Of The Sky. The album was written and recorded over a two-year period where ideas and arrangements were allowed to slow-cook and develop over time, in contrast with the last album The Dragon Flies Away (UTR 088CD/LP, 2017) which came together relatively quickly for the duo. The music comprises the usual (for Bamboo) mix of Horwood's flawlessly resonant folk cadence and Carlisle's pristine synth production, whilst TR808 drum machines and samples lock together with acoustic drums, themselves often given the Tony Visconti, Eventide Harmoniser treatment of Berlin-era Bowie albums. Ancient ARP synthesizers and Mellotron flutes and horns sit next to contemporary digital sounds and samples in a hauntological tapestry over which Horwood can intone her sometimes mournful, often uplifting vocals. Although Daughters Of The Sky breaks away from the storybook concept format of The Dragon Flies Away, in that sense being more similar to Bamboo's debut album Prince Pansori Priestess" (UTR 075CD/LP, 2016), there are still recurrent themes that run through the album such as motherhood, the cyclical nature of life, emancipation and liberation. What might be the centerpiece of the album, "East Of The Sun / West Of The Moon", an 11-minute epic, begins with a serene, desolate ambient intro which eventually transports us over the waves to some unknown land. Bar the brief instrumental coda "Tenebrae", the album ends on an optimistic note with "A World Is Born", an upbeat song of renewal. Horwood sings of the creation of a new world for a new generation, out of the ashes of a society stagnating under the collapsing weight of late capitalism. Saxophones provided by Emma Gatrill answer each vocal line in call and response style over more harmonized drums reminiscent of Bowie's Low (1977). Carlisle originally wrote the music following the death of Bowie, and Horwood added some Prince-like backing vocals. Although her lyric makes no reference to the loss of these giants, their influence hang over the song in a way which can only add to the sense of hope and rebirth, a sense which is indeed felt throughout the album. Cosmic pop, like Kate Bush in Yellow Magic Orchestra. CD version comes in gatefold sleeve.

LP version; 180 gram gold vinyl; Edition of 500. Bamboo, Nick Carlisle and Rachel Horwood, present their third studio album, Daughters Of The Sky. The album was written and recorded over a two-year period where ideas and arrangements were allowed to slow-cook and develop over time, in contrast with the last album The Dragon Flies Away (UTR 088CD/LP, 2017) which came together relatively quickly for the duo. The music comprises the usual (for Bamboo) mix of Horwood's flawlessly resonant folk cadence and Carlisle's pristine synth production, whilst TR808 drum machines and samples lock together with acoustic drums, themselves often given the Tony Visconti, Eventide Harmoniser treatment of Berlin-era Bowie albums. Ancient ARP synthesizers and Mellotron flutes and horns sit next to contemporary digital sounds and samples in a hauntological tapestry over which Horwood can intone her sometimes mournful, often uplifting vocals. Although Daughters Of The Sky breaks away from the storybook concept format of The Dragon Flies Away, in that sense being more similar to Bamboo's debut album Prince Pansori Priestess" (UTR 075CD/LP, 2016), there are still recurrent themes that run through the album such as motherhood, the cyclical nature of life, emancipation and liberation. What might be the centerpiece of the album, "East Of The Sun / West Of The Moon", an 11-minute epic, begins with a serene, desolate ambient intro which eventually transports us over the waves to some unknown land. Bar the brief instrumental coda "Tenebrae", the album ends on an optimistic note with "A World Is Born", an upbeat song of renewal. Horwood sings of the creation of a new world for a new generation, out of the ashes of a society stagnating under the collapsing weight of late capitalism. Saxophones provided by Emma Gatrill answer each vocal line in call and response style over more harmonized drums reminiscent of Bowie's Low (1977). Carlisle originally wrote the music following the death of Bowie, and Horwood added some Prince-like backing vocals. Although her lyric makes no reference to the loss of these giants, their influence hang over the song in a way which can only add to the sense of hope and rebirth, a sense which is indeed felt throughout the album. Cosmic pop, like Kate Bush in Yellow Magic Orchestra.

Having released a slew of singles and an LP on various DIY labels in the US and the UK at the turn of this decade, London post-punk stalwarts Hygiene return from hiatus with their sophomore effort, Private Sector. Where their debut LP Public Sector (2011) reflected a nostalgic longing for an unrealized socialist modernist utopia, Private Sector finds them confronting the grim realities of the present, Hygiene rail against the neoliberal madness of utility cartels, tax havens, and privatized railways, seizing the moment as the current period of interregnum sees the old ideological certainties come into question. Proving nostalgia to be an inescapable trap, the band continue to hearken back to the kind of post-punk that existed before anybody knew to affix the "post" prefix. Private Sector has the signature Hygiene sound, mixing brooding melodies with a choppy, aggressive approach, and a restricted pop sensibility. However, this ever-so-slightly-more mature record finds the band taking advantage of the musicianship of their friends, mixing in the odd viola, glockenspiel, piano and keyboard. Recommended for fans of Real Ale, British Rail Class 55 Deltics, Euston station, and Jeremy Corbyn. Edition of 500.

After a busy year, Red Channel chose a number of their most resonant songs to record for this debut 7" EP on Upset The Rhythm entitled Crazy Diamonds EP. The title track launches the listener through a stratosphere of cascading notes, swoon-some lyrical turns and tack-sharp pivots in rhythmic practice. "Giver" is a similarly sprightly yet pointedly track. "Demons" swirls with minimalist pop moves, a trailing backing vocal and a tumbling bass motif, whilst a dream-like quality pervades the guitar and keyboard lines. "Slowness" is another triumph of illusory lyrical association and punchy gesture.

Brand new 7" EP from Glasgow's Vital Idles, following on from the band's well-received debut album, Left Hand (UTR 106CD/LP, 2018). The EP reveals itself as a steady, hypo-tenusal rise of intensity and momentum, starting with the hallucinogenic restrain of opener "Break A", building tension throughout the gothic-noise flourishes of "Seconds" and "Rustle Rustle" and culminating in "Careful Extracts", a two-minute burst of carefree introspection that might as well be the unintentional answer to early career highlight "My Sentiments".

LP version; 180 gram vinyl; edition of 500. Rattle's Sequence is released by Upset The Rhythm. Rattle is an ongoing musical project concerned with experiments in rhythm, meter and tension. Katharine Eira Brown and Theresa Wrigley make up the duo from Nottingham, who with just drums and occasional vocals weave an expanse of percussive vortices. Their songs swirl and envelop with all the physicality and drama of another world pulling together around its own shifting center of gravity. The drum beats phase and sidestep, they trade accents and overlap, providing a suitably alive terrain for the vocals to explore similar tendencies of pattern. Rattle's debut album (UTR 082CD/LP) was released in 2016 through Upset The Rhythm / I Own You and was greeted with much critical praise, this often singled out their hypnotic minimalism and ecstatic regard for the dance floor. Sequence was written in much the same way as their debut, with the duo facing each other over their shared palette of drums, allowing songs to develop naturally and suggest their own direction. However, Brown and Wrigley were more confident of what they wanted to achieve with this follow up, having already proven the concept watertight through their debut and subsequent concerts. They knew they could wrestle songs out of the silence with such a setup, so afforded themselves greater time to explore extended, long-form composition. Sequence is composed of four tracks, each clocking in around 10 minutes or over and focused squarely on a deeper resonance with the creative act, illustrative of how ideas build from scratch, of how music can grow out of repetition. Recorded at JT Soar in Nottingham with Phil Booth and Mark Spivey (Rattle's live sound engineer), the album developed out of these points, with Rattle honing their sound. Everything was stripped back to just the drums and Brown's voice. Percussion flourishes were deemed unnecessary, overdubbed layers of vocals were kept to a minimum. As a result, this quartet of songs are more meditative and aware than previous efforts, with the duo's attentions spent tapping into each track's potential, mapping out expeditions in tempo and making much of the journey over destination this is complemented further through the production of Mark Spivey, capturing Rattle's huge live sound on tape for this album with its incurred dub-delay trippiness, taming and melding. Sequence is a liminal album, thoughtfully crafted with themes of transition and realization at its heart.